“CRYPTOCURRENCY: BUBBLE OR REALITY?” PANEL

ZAPOPAN, JALISCO; February 2, 2018. Universidad Panamericana campus Guadalajara, through the School of Administrative Sciences, held the Forum "Cryptocurrencies: Bubble or reality on the emergence and use of cryptocurrency through a panel discussion where speakers debated and exchanged ideas on this fascinating current issue.

To start the event, Dr. Carlos Eduardo López Hernández, Director of the School of Economic and Business Sciences, offered a welcome message and a brief introduction to the topic.

During his talk, Dr. Gustavo Adolfo Luján explained the technological side of cryptocurrencies going back to the origins of Bitcoit with P2P applications which consist of an electronic exchange of information between users. As an example, he mentioned music sharing site Napster. Dr. Luján explained how cryptocurrencies work, starting with data structure, data blocks or blockchain, which record all transactions, Hash Function and MerkleTree.

The Data Science expert shared interesting information about Bitcoin, such as the current flow of cryptocurrencies. He explained their advantages and disadvantages, and concluded that from his point of view this technology is something that is here to stay. He recommended entering the bitcoin.org site to learn more about the subject.

For her part, Dr. Nora Ampudia, approached the issue from the Economics point of view. She explained that cryptocurrencies should not be considered similar to money. They can only be a digital representation of a value. She explained in detail why Bitcoin is not money, including the fact that it is not legalized and no one is responsible for backing it up. She also commented that cryptocurrencies were created to settle and postpone debts. They are not a stable deposit. Dr. Ampudia talked about the risk for the investors as well as advantages for the economy, risks for the financial system and conflicts for the central bank. As a conclusion, he she mentioned that, from her point of view, cryptocurrencies are a bubble, but they could receive legal backing or convert into a currency.

Finally MBA. Armando Casarín y Soto presented the topic as a timeline, began with a brief survey of the attendees who asked about their experience as users of cryptocurrencies. With this, he explained that most people are guided by greed and forget ethics. He commented that human beings treasure shiny things and that is why he considers that gold is the only tangible with real value.

Armando Casarín pointed out that Blockchain is possibly the system of the future and will change many things. In his opinion, Bitcoin is partly a bubble and a partly a reality because nobody knows when everything is going to end. To the audience, he recommended investment alternatives, methods and places to operate and, especially, he invited them to make sure to investigate before investing. After all, they are depositing their cash.